Listen. I get that I consume a lot of horror media, so things that may be scary to some people don't really phase me. I also understand the hustle that youtubers gotta go through in order to keep money coming in. Like I understand that, right.

...when you have about 7 (and counting) videos all with a variant of "the most [blank] DOOM WAD" it gets a bit funny.

Doom Youtuber "Midnight" has a few videos all claiming to be covering the "SCARIEST DOOM WADS" or something along those lines. I seek out these WADs and play them myself before watching his covers on them, and a good chunk of them are...very low effort. Like don't get me wrong MyHouse.WAD is a fucking banger of a WAD and everyone and their mothers know that by now. But shit like do-not-play.WAD and 1993.WAD are just...so...incredibly low effort. It's like when people talk about how those NextBots you see on GMod are like so pants shittingly scary when in reality it's just...a png coming after you.

On a basic level, ignoring how fucking fantastic everything else is, MyHouse.WAD works as both a WAD and an ARG because it has a story hook and fantastic atmosphere. Things slowly begin to change around you, from the music to the map itself while you have your back turned, and how slow that process is is genuinely well done! It doesn't overstay its welcome and takes all the time it needs to slide you into the weird shit. Things like do-not-play.WAD and 1993.WAD are just...a png chases you around. That's it.

do-not-play.WAD at least made a whole new map for itself, but 1993.WAD is just Doom 2 with its textures changed and a baby head that chases you. Like that's it. I certainly don't want to discourage the creators of these WADs nor do I want to make it seem like I'm making fun of them, but at the same time it's like...come on man. Do a little something more, it could be cool if you did.

Also side note: I don't wanna give Midnight too much shit because I'm sure he's a respectable guy, but I spent a good 10 minutes trying to find a download link for 1993.WAD because the original link went down, and Midnight did not include a download link but rather a link to his...Raid Shadow Legends sponsor. Again, don't want to give the guy too much shit, but maybe at least include a download link somewhere in the description? Because that is someone's artwork you're making a video on. The least you could do is credit them properly.

And for archival purposes: this is the original link for 1993.WAD (found from this video.) Meanwhile this link is a copy of the WAD I tossed onto Media Fire.

So I found a neat DOOM archive with pretty much everything you could ever want in terms of the classic, officially released games. It even has EXEs and Doom95, as well as scans of books and ads. I decided that I would take the EXE for DOOM 1 and pop it into DOS-Box and play that way.

...how the fuck did people play like this back then?

Like not in an insulting way, more of pure astonishment. The fact that you have to hold alt to strafe while at the same time using shift to run and ctrl to shoot means that my hands are pretty crammed on the left side of my keyboard. It takes a lotta mental gymnastics to recognize that I gotta hold alt to strafe, just that alone fucks up my flow a whole lot. Not like I won't get used to it! Just like god damn. Shout out to anyone who completed a nightmare run with this control scheme, you could probably kill god.

I just wrapped up SUFFER 2, and wow. Shit just keeps getting better and better.

I know this game is meant to have a very loose story, but I can't help but obsess over it anyway. What sucks is that I see no one else talk about or obsess over this game like I do! It's so fucking good and I need other people to play it! I don't really have too much to say about the game itself, because honestly everthing I said about the first game applies here too. The only difference is that there's more tracks and they're just as great.

The one thing I have to say about it in terms of criticism is that sometimes it's very laggy. Which I understand is a fault on my end due to my computer running cardboard hardware (I think my motherboard is from like 2010, shits dying) however due to how the dashing system works, I actually can't dash as far because of the lag. There's one level, Exodus, I borderline couldn't get past because the level has a big jump you're supposed to make, but when I take the little jump pad to jump across I only get half way due to how laggy the level is. I can't close the gap with dash either because the lag affects dash distance as well. This makes it impossible for me to get past this level, which does make me sad but I could at least enjoy the rest of the game through let's plays. I don't even blame the dev either, because coding is hard as hell and it's one person making this.

I love this game series to absolute bits. I saw the dev is working on a third and final installment and boy am I so fucking excited about it. Until I get my hands on it I'll stick to endlessly replaying the first two (at least what I can of the 2nd one). If the dev sees this: I am so in love with your work. You've done a fantastic job. ♥

I discovered a game simply called SUFFER on Steam, which caught my eye because of it's self-proclaimed "horror-punk aesthetic." Cheap too, only $3! It's been very fun to play!

It certainly comes hard with that punk aesthetic, in that everything about this city you're dropped into and everything you fight against has blatant propaganda (hell even the cops have nazi arm bands.) The style of the game is wonderful too. It has a certain "home-made" feel to it, and all the sprites look hand drawn. About half the propaganda is just text on a plain background, this alongside the cutscenes being hand drawn comic esque pages. It contributes to the game in such a positive way; I really love the feel of everything. Although there's only a few weapon choices, it still makes for a wonderful playing experience.

Don't even get me started on the music. There's only a few tracks, but those few tracks are bangers.

I also find it quite interesting that this game has a dashing and double jump mechanic, and came out before Ultrakill or Doom Eternal did. It's not exactly an original idea and I will more than likely run into a game predating this one that also has these mechanics, but I still find that interesting. Who knows? Maybe some inspiration was taken.

If you have $3 to spare, use it here. It's a really fun experience.

I've been getting into Duke Nukem 3D a bunch recently, but beforehand I had to play via a...ahem...legal version of the game. The games really fun! More fun than I expected to be honest.

But the entire reason why I had to download my...ahem...legal version was because EDuke32 was just not working at all. I read through the installation and set-up and it pretty much just said to run the .exe and it'll work from there, but that's not the case. I kept getting this error on the end of the log it writes:

3.9957s WARN| USER.CON:844: overwriting existing definition for sound #261 (hydro43.voc)
4.0022s WARN| USER.CON:873: overwriting existing definition for sound #323 (aisle402.voc)
4.0192s CON| GAME.CON: In actor 'ORGANTIC':
4.0203s WARN| GAME.CON:3967: found 'else' with no 'if'
4.0221s CON| GAME.CON: In state 'pigshootenemystate':
4.0232s WARN| GAME.CON:5890: found 'else' with no 'if'
4.0252s WARN| Found 4 warning(s), 0 error(s).
4.0303s CON| Compiled 140344 bytes in 115ms

There was no solution written online for it either, and no matter what I tried it just didn't work. It would always boot, begin starting up, and then just disappear. Nothing in the task manager either.

...well, it didn't work until I tried one solution.
That solution?
...downloading the debug version.

I downloaded it on a whim to see if it could maybe detect what the actual fucking problem was, and when I booted it up? Boom. Works like a charm.
I have NO idea what it actually fixes but if it works it works, yknow.

Outside of that, the game has actually been really fun! As I said I didn't expect to have as much fun as I've been having, since I'm such a Doom fanatic and since some of the jokes and maps are rather outdated in terms of...political correctness I guess is the phrase I'm gonna use? But moving past it, the game is genuinely a lot of fun and I think I'm gonna have to play the expansions.